Skgoa wrote:This thread inspired me to try hydroponics. I have neither much spare money nor space nor time, but I would like to do it as a very small scale experiment/hobby. (Like many german kids, I grew herbs in cotton batting back in primary school.
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Sounds like you might already have some experience, then!
I need a growing medium (or just water or air for advanced applications...), a nutritional fluid, enclosures for those two, a mechanism to apply the fluid to the medium at specific intervals and a light source running at specific intervals?
Correct.
Can this be done in my kitchen or even my bedroom? I.e. does it produce an "odor"
or is it to susceptible to the environment? Does the whole setup have to be covered? Do I need a special light? How much do I have to worry about contamination? Do I just have to clean the system after every "round" or do I have to treat fungi and bacteria as infectious deseases and constantly battle against them with antibiotics? Do the plants grow faster than when planted in soil?
Yes, it can be done in a kitchen or bedroom. Assuming you don't have a fungus outbreak or something the odor is on par with potted houseplants or an aquarium. It's not that susceptible to the environment although nutrient fluid constantly exposed to light will grow algae so you'll want the reservoir either light proof or wrapped in something lightproof (I use aluminum foil to wrap mine).
You need either sunlight or a reasonable fascimile, preferably 12-16 hours a day. If you locate it near a window you can use natural light, but in winter you may need a supplemental full-spectrum light. These are readily available for indoor plants of all sorts.
You want to start off with everything clean, a lot of people sanitize the equipment with either bleach or hydrogen peroxide solutions. You're not going to keep everything completely sterile, so don't sweat too hard over it, especially since you're in the experimenting stage.
Upon me telling him about this idea, my father recomended a pepper plant he got for his birthday. Apparently those are sold for ~6 euro as an almost fully grown plant (including soil) and need only water and sunlight for a couple of weeks to start growing peppers.
My plan is to use such a plant as the starting point for an incremental build-up of the system and my know-how. I.e. I would start by adding an automatic lighting and watering system, before using the seeds to start the hydroponic operation.
In general, plants don't do well going from soil to hydroponics due to transplant shock, so if you're going to do a hydroponic set up best to start from seed. However, using a potted plant to work out an automatic watering system and lighting does have some merit. I will note, however, that hydroponic plants need to be watered several times a day at a minimum, whereas most potted plants do fine being watered every few days.
So, what methods should I use?
I don't plan on being cost effective or getting a high yield for now, I want to start with the "easiest"/least complex system. My natural tendency to tinker and my latent perfectionism will drive up quality once I have the basics down.
If you want to really start slow and easy, start with just one plant. Get two containers, one to hold the growth medium and plant, the other to act as nutrient reservoir. You'll need some tubing to connect them, as well as gaskets and sealants. You'll need growth media, and nutrients. Also, unless you're home all the time, a timer and pump.
I've used container as small as 4 liter size plastic jugs, cut down to maybe 2 liter capacity. You can, if you want, start even smaller. You need something big enough to hold your plant, remembering that roots need some room, too, and maybe a couple cm deeper than that. You really don't want excessive depth, as it just requires you to fill it with more fluids. As a general rule of thumb, you want things that are either food grade or suitable for live animals, so find an aquarium supply store. You can obtain tubing, aquarium gravel, and a pump there (it may not be the absolute cheapest source, but it will all be in one place and the items won't be leaching poisons into the system). You can also obtain silicon aquarium sealant, again, compatible with living creatures (follows instructions - most require curing times before use of sealed item).
Make a hole just large enough for the tubing at the
bottom of your plant container. Attach tubing and seal joint. Fill the container within 2-3 cm of the top with your gravel. If the seed you're using is fairly large you can just plant it in the gravel. If it's small you may want to sprout it first, then transfer it.
You will then need to figure out, based on what you have acquired, how the pump fits into the system and how it hooks up to everything. You will need the pump to send fluid from the reservoir, which is placed lower than the plant pot, up into the pot. You can fill it from the top (requiring a hose to go up there) and just let it passively drain from the bottom, or force fluid up from the bottom until it's full, then let it drain back.
Time you will have to work out - I've had set ups that only require twice a day cycles, and others that required more. Currently, mine requires 4 ebb-and-flow cycles per day. You don't want the plants to drown, and you don't want them to dry out, either. So that will require some experimenting on your part. Smaller pots might require more frequent cycles. Different growth media have different water retaining capabilities. This is one area where a pre-made system is easier because these details have already been worked out for you.
Now, for nutrients - you can buy commercial mix. That is the easiest method, and it is the one most likely to yield good results. It does tend to cost some money, though. Or, if you're me, you can use fertilizers like
Miracle-Gro. The purists, of course,
scream at that notion. Honestly, you will not get maximum yield from that sort of thing, it's not formulated for hydroponics, but the plants will grow. (I'm fortunate in that my well water supplies some minerals lacking in that formula, and it is possible to supplement further although there will be some things in it not usable by your plants because it relies on soil bacteria to make it bioavailable). Because of the inadequacies of the mix, and because I lack truly sophisticated testing equipment, I discard the nutrient fluid about every two weeks to eliminate waste products, minimize growth of bad stuff like unwanted algae and fungus, and to replenish the nutrient supply. It's not efficient but it works and it's relatively cheap. (If we expand and continue our current garden we will look into better alternatives, some of which only make sense if you need large quantities. The stuff does, after all, go bad if you leave it sit as stuff grows in it, since it's food)
Congratulations, you now have your very own ebb-and-flow gravel culture set up.
Start small, just one or a few plants, then expand if you enjoy it. Small systems require less capital and are easier to set up and/or dismantle. Don't be surprised if everything up and dies on you the first time you try to start such a system (usually, with these, it's because you're not cycling the fluid often enough and the plants die out). If you get fungus you'll need ot dismantle and sanitize everything. Otherwise, I'd dismantle and sanitize after harvest, also removing old roots and such. That's another reason for starting small - cleaning gravel isn't bad on a small scale, but it can rapidly become an exercise and strength in endurance when you're talking about significant quantities.
